데요

'It turned out…' — what you saw yourself

-데요 reports something the speaker personally witnessed or experienced, usually with mild surprise: 근데 또... 아무도 못 들어가데요? 'but it turns out nobody could get in.' Its near neighbour -대요 looks and sounds almost identical but reports what someone else told you, so the difference is firsthand versus hearsay — and it is the single most common mix-up with this ending. 시간이 지나면서 산이 좋아지데요 'over time I found I came to like mountains.'

Register: polite, spoken